Reviews

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 143 by Neil Clarke

literaryxqueen's review against another edition

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5.0

I cannot get this short out of my head. First of all, I love the writing - the pacing was beautiful, the dialogue was great, the description lovely.

And I really really want to this to be turned in a novel, so I can know what happened next!

Merged review:

The best collection of stories so far, liked them all!

bookaneer's review

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2.0

Individual rating for Hao Jingfang's "The Loneliest Ward" : medical treatment that function like social media and the people (patients) who need validation could get addicted. Not bad, but I read better stories from the author.

djotaku's review

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2.0

This issue's stories didn't really work as well for me as the last few issues have.

Thoughts per story:

The veilonaut's dream: explorers at a spatial discontinuity explore it for money. Partially a tale of exploitative labor and partly a tale of the stages of grief.

The Anchorite Wakes: There are little hints here and there that something odd is going on. It is all revealed in the last few pages and it’s quite an incredible world hidden from us until that point. Very neat story and ending.

Kingfisher: A metaphor for being unable to let relationships go. It involved such strangeness that I often was left to discard various information about the world is the story because it often made no sense. But I think it worked alright as a metaphor.

The privilege of the happy ending: The author is literally in conversation with the reader in this extremely meta short story. It explores ideas of storytelling and, as per the title, happy endings. It’s quite well-written and reminds me of a fable, if fables got extremely meta.

The Loneliest Ward: a very short story about a nurse who works at a ward where people are becoming comatose in some kind of pandemic. The story is so short, it's hard to talk about without spoiling anything. But the ending really re-enforces the point.

Yukui!: An interesting take on AI that perhaps takes the slave metaphor to a more subtle place than I've often seen in other stories.

Othermother (annex excerpt): an excerpt for a novel that was turned into a short story for publishing in Clarkesworld. I often say I went to see more of a world and now I can. Some kind of Alien invasion is capturing children and had used an evil psychological plan to do it. Quite horrific.

Non-Fiction:
Mary and the monster: the life of Mary Godwin Shelley: a really neat insight into how Mary Shelley's life provided the experience to write Frankenstein at such a young age.

Augmentations, assassins, and soundtracks: a conversation with Emily Davenport: Some discussions on generation ships as a genre and how to consider the technological advances in the future.

Another Word: Keeping Time: A philosophical discussion of time and how that can be used for story-telling purposes

Editor’s Desk: Oh, the Horror of it All!: Neil decides no more horror for Clarkesworld

thesffreader's review

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3.0

A very mixed bag.

The Veilonaut’s Dream by Henry Szabranski 3.5/5

Sad story of a troup of scientists studying an another dimension searching for the remnants of their old friends.


The Anchorite Waits by R.S.A. Garcia 2.5/5

A story that starts off as a fantasy tale but that end up being science fiction based. The writing was quite nice but overall, it left me underwhelmed.

The Privilege of the Happy Ending by Kij Johnson 5/5

Definitely the gem of the issue, it's not my first Kij Johnson story but so far it's my favorite. I loved how Johnson repeatdly broke the fourth wall and the pacing and the prose was on point. I'm very impressed by this one, especially because I usually prefer my short fiction to be SF and not fantasy.
It follows a little girl and a hen as they try to survive humanity and other monsters.

Kingfisher by Robert Reed DNF

Oh no this one definitely wasn't for me, I usually tend to like Reed's fiction but I tried to read this three times and I was completely bored. It felt tedious and longwinded and absolutely not for me.

The Loneliest Ward Hao Jingfan 3.5/5

I still have yet to read Folding Beijing so that was my first Jingfan work and I liked it however, I wished it had been a tad longer. But it's definitely a nice and sharp view on social media.

Yukui! by James Patrick Kelly 3.5/5

An artificial intelligence is given freedom when it doesn't want it at first. It's nice and very readable but a bit overdone and I didn't see any elements particularly original or different from the dozens of stories I read based on this trope. Still, it had its moments and I enjoyed it but it's a bit forgettable.

I haven't read the excerpt from Annex by Rich Larson because I already intend to read the novel later.



mikewhiteman's review

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4.0

The Veilonaut's Dream - Henry Szabranski ***

The Anchorite Wakes - RSA Garcia ****

Kingfisher - Robert Reed ****

The Privilege Of The Happy Ending - Kij Johnson ****

The Loneliest Ward - Hao Jingfang, trans. Ken Liu ***

Yukui! - James Patrick Kelly ***

Othermother - Rich Larson ****
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